Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic. Douglas James
taught him in these very waves to swim —
‘The prince of pups,’ you said, ‘for wind and limb’ —
And now those lessons, darling, come to bless.
(The day after the rescue: Gelert and I walking along the sand.)
’Twas in no glittering tourney’s mimic strife, —
’Twas in that bloody fight in Raxton Grove,
While hungry ravens croaked from boughs above,
And frightened blackbirds shrilled the warning fife —
’Twas there, in days when Friendship still was rife,
Mine ancestor who threw the challenge-glove
Conquered and found his foe a soul to love,
Found friendship – Life’s great second crown of life.
So I this morning love our North Sea more
Because he fought me well, because these waves
Now weaving sunbows for us by the shore
Strove with me, tossed me in those emerald caves
That yawned above my head like conscious graves —
I love him as I never loved before.
In these days when so much is written about the intelligence of the lower animals, when ‘Hans,’ the ‘thinking horse,’ is ‘interviewed’ by eminent scientists, the exploit of the Second Gelert is not without interest. I may, perhaps, mention a strange experience of my own. The late Betts Bey, a well-known figure in St. Peter’s Port, Guernsey, had a fine black retriever, named Caro. During a long summer holiday which we spent in Guernsey, Caro became greatly attached to a friend, and Betts Bey presented him to her. He was a magnificent fellow, valiant as a lion, and a splendid diver and swimmer. He often plunged off the parapet of the bridge which spans the Serpentine. Indeed, he would have dived from any height. His intelligence was surprising. If we wished to make him understand that he was not to accompany us, we had only to say, ‘Caro, we are going to church!’ As soon as he heard the word ‘church’ his barks would cease, his tail would drop, and he would look mournfully resigned. One evening, as I was writing in my room, Caro began to scratch outside the door, uttering those strange ‘woof-woofs’ which were his canine language. I let him in, but he would not rest. He stood gazing at me with an intense expression, and, turning towards the door, waited impatiently. For some time I took no notice of his dumb appeal, but his excitement increased, and suddenly a vague sense of ill seemed to pass from him into my mind. Drawn half-consciously I rose, and at once with a strange half-human whine Caro dashed upstairs. I followed him. He ran into a bedroom, and there in the dark I found my friend lying unconscious. It is well-nigh certain that Caro thus saved my friend’s life.
Chapter VIII
LONDON
Between Mr. Watts-Dunton and the brother who came next to him, before mentioned, there was a very great affection, although the difference between them, mentally and physically, was quite noticeable. They were articled to their father on the same day and admitted solicitors on the same day, a very unusual thing with solicitors and their sons. Mr. Watts-Dunton afterwards passed a short term in one of the great conveyancing offices in London in order to become proficient in conveyancing. His brother did the same in another office in Bedford Row; but he afterwards practised for himself. Mr. A. E. Watts soon had a considerable practice as family solicitor and conveyancer. Mr. Hake identifies him with Cyril Aylwin, but before I quote Mr. Hake’s interesting account of him, I will give the vivid description of Cyril in ‘Aylwin’: —
“Juvenile curls clustered thick and short beneath his wideawake. He had at first struck me as being not much more than a lad, till, as he gave me that rapid, searching glance in passing, I perceived the little crow’s feet round his eyes, and he then struck me immediately as being probably on the verge of thirty-five. His figure was slim and thin, his waist almost girlish in its fall. I should have considered him small, had not the unusually deep, loud, manly, and sonorous voice with which he had accosted Sinfi conveyed an impression of size and weight such as even big men do not often produce. This deep voice, coupled with that gaunt kind of cheek which we associate with the most demure people, produced an effect of sedateness.. but in the one glance I had got from those watchful, sagacious, twinkling eyes, there was an expression quite peculiar to them, quite inscrutable, quite indescribable.”
Cyril Aylwin was at first thought to be a portrait of Whistler, which is not quite so outrageously absurd as the wild conjecture that William Morris was the original of Wilderspin. Mr. Hake says: —
“I am especially able to speak of this character, who has been inquired about more than any other in the book. I knew him, I think, even before I knew Rossetti and Morris, or any of that group. He was a brother of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s – Mr. Alfred Eugene Watts. He lived at Sydenham, and died suddenly, either in 1870 or 1871, very shortly after I had met him at a wedding party. Among the set in which I moved at that time he had a great reputation as a wit and humorist. His style of humour always struck me as being more American than English. While bringing out humorous things that would set a dinner table in a roar, he would himself maintain a perfectly unmoved countenance. And it was said of him, as ‘Wilderspin’ says of ‘Cyril Aylwin,’ that he was never known to laugh.” 10
After a time Mr. Watts-Dunton joined his brother, and the two practised together in London. They also lived together at Sydenham. Some time after this, however, Mr. Watts-Dunton determined to abandon the law for literature. The brothers migrated to Sydenham, because at that time Mr. Watts-Dunton pursued music with an avidity and interest which threatened for a time to interfere with those literary energies which it was now his intention to exercise. At that time the orchestral concerts at the Crystal Palace under Manns, given every morning and every afternoon, were a great attraction to music lovers, and Mr. Watts-Dunton, who lived close by, rarely missed either the morning or the afternoon concert. It was in this way that he became steeped in German music; and afterwards, when he became intimate with Dr. F. Hueffer, the musical critic of the ‘Times,’ and the exponent of Wagner in Great Britain, he became a thorough Wagnerian.
It was during this time, and through the extraordinary social attractions of his brother, that Mr. Watts-Dunton began to move very much in London life, and saw a great deal of what is called London society. After his brother’s death he took chambers in Great James Street, close to Mr. Swinburne, with whom he had already become intimate. And according to Mr. Hake, in his paper in ‘T. P.’s Weekly’ above quoted from, it was here that he wrote ‘Aylwin.’ I have already alluded to his record of this most interesting event: —
“I have just read,” he says, “with the greatest interest the article in your number of Sept. 18, 1903, called ‘How Authors Work Best.’ But the following sentence in it set me reflecting: ‘Flaubert took ten years to write and repolish “Madame Bovary,” Watts-Dunton twenty years to write, recast, and conclude “Aylwin.”’ The statement about ‘Aylwin’ has often been made, and in these days of hasty production it may well be taken by the author as a compliment; but it is as entirely apocryphal as that about Scott’s brother having written the Waverley Novels, and as that about Bramwell Brontë having written ‘Wuthering Heights.’ As to ‘Aylwin,’ I happen to be in a peculiarly authoritative position to speak upon the genesis of this very popular book. If any one were to peruse the original manuscript of the story he would find it in four different handwritings – my late father’s, and two of my brothers’, but principally in mine.
Yet I can aver that it was not written by us, and also that its composition did not take twenty years to achieve. It was dictated to us.”
Dr. Gordon Hake is mainly known as the ‘parable poet,’ but as a fact he was a physician of extraordinary talent, who had practised first at Bury St. Edmunds and afterwards at Spring Gardens, until he partly retired to be private physician to the late Lady Ripon. After her death he left practice altogether in order to devote himself to literature, for which he had
‘Notes and Queries,’ June 7, 1902.